Reading Great Expectations

     Great Expecations was one of the most challenging books that I have thus far in my life. It took a lot more than just skimming over the chapters to understand it. I had to slowly read each paragraph, sometimes even had to re-read it, to understand the point it was trying to get across. I would read almost every day, but a few times during stage 2, I just skimmed over the chapter and then read sparknotes because it got really boring. Reading this book was a good challenge for me. To help me understand each section after reading it once, I either re-read it, read sparknotes, or even listened to the chapter on youtube (but not often because each chapter was like 20 minutes).

     The part that I liked the most about this book, was when all the truths were revealed and Pip finally understood who were fake and who were true to him. Rather than that, Pip just made me mad throughout the book due to his decisions, so I wasn't to fond of seeing what mistakes he would make next. Thanksfully, I was able to hang in and stay till all of the truths were uncovered. I didn't really like this book to much due to the amount of boring content in the middle of the book, but the first few chapters of the book and stage 3 were pretty interesting. This has been a new experience for me because usually when I read a book I have a full opinion on the book, but Great Expectations is different, I have a mixed opinion on it.

Writing about Great Expectations

          From when we first started working on our thesises to now, I have really improved on finding a thought-provoking idea. At the beginning of these thesises, my ideas were very obvious and my thesis would sound more like plot summary. Now, my thesises aren't exceptional, but instead of them being based on a obvious topic, they are focused on specific motifs represented throughout the book. I started off with the big idea of Pip's perspective on the world changing, but later realized that this big idea was very obvious and not very unique. Then I slowly started changing my focus to the relationship between Pip and Joe, and how it has been affected by other characters in the book.
          "In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Pip's opinion of Joe becomes more complex when his perspective on life changes as a result of his awareness of his family's status." I think that this is my best thesis so far because it is focused on a specific motif in the book rather than the whole plot. The idea of Pip and Joe's relationship is the part of this book that I find the most interesting because as Pip changes, Joe's perspective on Pip changes, and that was exactly what Pip didn't want to happen at the start of the book when he helped the convict. This sentence skillfully places together my most interesting idea with the reason why it occured. This thesis allowed my following sentences to flow more smoothly creating a better overall paragraph.